no title

Unrest

Detained protesters get amnesty in Ukraine

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoEfrem Lukatsky | Associated PressAnti-government activists pass time near a barricade in Kiev, Ukraine. Opposition leaders, citing worries about low temperatures, urged their supporters not to rally on Sunday.

Your Right to Know

KIEV, Ukraine — President Viktor Yanukovich has signed into law an amnesty for demonstrators
detained during mass unrest and repealed anti-protest legislation, in a fresh bid to take the heat
out of the political crisis.

However, yesterday’s move by Yanukovich — still politically active despite going on sick leave
on Thursday — was not likely to end the anti-government protests.

And TV coverage of a prominent opposition activist showing marks of torture inflicted by mystery
kidnappers — along with reports that police tried to arrest the man in a hospital — fueled anger
that has become so explosive that the army called for urgent moves to ease the tension.

Many protesters rejected Yanukovich’s amnesty outright, because it is conditional on occupied
buildings being cleared of activists. A radical nationalist group behind much of the violence
pressed new, tough demands yesterday.

The 63-year-old leader, who looks increasingly isolated in a tug-of-war between the West and
Ukraine’s former Soviet overlord, Russia, suddenly withdrew from view on Thursday, complaining of a
respiratory ailment. He was not seen in public yesterday.

Opposition leaders, citing fears for demonstrators’ health from arctic temperatures, urged their
supporters not to take to the streets for rallies today.

But with some television channels replaying video of opposition activist Dmytro Bulatov,
abducted a week ago, displaying wounds inflicted by his assailants, fury at the government is
unabated.

“There’s no point in signing this amnesty law,” said a protester who gave only the name Olena,
working at an improvised clinic at Kiev’s occupied city hall.

“No one will leave here until this government is gone.”

The standoff, triggered by Yanukovich’s decision in November to accept a $15 billion loan
package from Russia instead of a trade deal with the European Union, prompted intervention from the
military yesterday.

The Defense Ministry urged the president to move swiftly and legally to end the crisis.

At least six people have been killed and hundreds more injured in street battles between
anti-government demonstrators and police.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry planned to meet opposition leaders on the sidelines of a
security conference in Munich yesterday.

“Our message to Ukraine’s opposition will be the full support of President Obama and of the
American people,” Kerry said yesterday in Berlin.

“But we will also say to them that if you get that reform agenda, … we would urge them to engage
in that because further standoff, or further violence that becomes uncontrollable, is not in
anybody’s interests.”

Kerry also called on Russia to keep its distance.

“We would … say to our friends in Russia ... this is not something where Ukraine should become a
proxy and trapped in some kind of larger ambition for Russia or the United States.”